The Black Company: Chronicles of The Black Company, Book 1

I've been reading fantasy on and off for years now and was frankly getting a little tired of the genre. But I read this book with delight. Unlike most other "dark fantasy," this book managed to walk the marvelous line of maintaining likeable characters; I never felt ham-handedly manipulated or jerked around, and I never wanted to throw the book down in disgust (like I do when I read, for example, George R.R. Martin, whose idea of "dark fantasy" is "Haha, you like that character? I KEEL HIM!") The plots were clever and relatively original; the author communicated a real sense of the personalities of all the major characters, and they moved in a world that felt "real." The book was good enough to suspend my disbelief; it got me and took me in. The closest parallels in tone I can think of are perhaps the old Fritz Leiber Lankhmar books, or what the Theives' World series wanted to be but didn't manage. Maybe some of the earlier, better Michael Moorcock stories. Is this book as polished as some of the stuff that's coming out now? No. Heck, there isn't even a map, much less detailed historical accuracy in the weapons, or completely invented languages, or whatever else. That's not what this is; it's closer in spirit to Robert E. Howard than it is to Robert Jordan. A little primitive; a little rough around the edges. But good, worth reading, and unique.

"It was a night for screams. A broiling, sticky night of the sort that abrades that last thin barrier between the civilized man and the monster crouched in his soul. The screams came from homes where fear, heat, and overcrowding had put too much strain on the monster’s chains.""There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints.Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies.We adjure labels. We fight for money and indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant.""They sit around together like a couple of rocks, talking about the same things boulders do. They are content just to share one another’s company.""Consider little children. There are not many of them not cute and lovable and precious, sweet as whipped honey and butter. So where do all the wicked people come from?""Little girls are twice as precious and innocent as little boys. I do not know a culture that does not make them that way.""There was always a breeze out around the Island, though it avoided the shore as if fearing leprosy. Closer at hand, the wheeling gulls were as surly and lackadaisical as the day promised to make most men."So this was a book that I should not have liked. It kinda ticked off a pet peeve. But I can’t help myself. I enjoyed Croaker’s (yes, that’s the character’s name) voice entirely too much. I mean, with names like One-eye, Silent, and Tom-Tom how could you not at least be swept away in the entertainment? And as you can see by the above, there were some great quotes in this book.Soooo, story? I’m not sure. I guess I can sum it up by saying that a mercenary group gets a contract to work for the bad guys and ends up going on a campaign to further their employer’s advances. Because our protagonists are portrayed as neither good nor evil, it makes for some interesting observations. And my last sentence should warn those who love old school clearly good vs clearly bad that this might not be the book for them. While I consider Croaker to be inherently good, some of those in his company are not. And he works for the bad guys. He does stuff for the bad guys. So fair warning.What was my annoyance? Summaries. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but some of the scenes were just lumped into a summary paragraph. I mean, to the point where it was almost like, “We went north and fought and won.” Nothing that simple, but it sure did feel like it. That happened a lot. Normally I wouldn’t mind, I mean, I’m not a fan of descriptions, but I felt a bit cheated out of some action. Matter of fact, even the action scenes felt a bit summed up. If Croaker fought, it was pretty much lumped up as that, instead of giving us a play by play of his moves, or how many bad guys he took on. I found it as enjoyable as annoying. I will say, dialog mostly advanced the story. I like dialog, so this worked.Another thing that took me a bit to adjust to was Cook’s writing style. Scenes could be a bit confusing at times, especially the beginning. You kinda feel tossed around. It’s a lot to adjust to right from the get go. There were breathtaking sentences, but I’d say most of it read choppy. At first, I wasn’t a fan, but as the story progressed I actually found it captivating. A few examples:"One-eye grunted, discarded. Candy picked up and spread. One-eye cursed.""The list was disappointing. I gave it to Elmo. He cursed, spat, cursed again. He kicked the planks we were using as a card table."As you can see, it’s very short, abrupt, and choppy. Somehow it works, though. It fits with the characters, and I found myself not noticing it the farther I read.The world was fleshed out enough for me, but those crazy into world building might find it lacking. I didn’t really get a good feel for it, but then again, I’m not one to usually notice an underdeveloped world. I like a story that moves.How about those characters? I can’t say that I love one over another. There was a group—the main group the story focuses on—that I loved. All of them. They were each well built, flawed, unique, and interacted with each member differently. I liked that aspect. Most of all, I think I enjoyed Croaker’s voice; how he spoke, how he observed, his morals and lack thereof. He wasn’t my favorite character—I’d actually be challenged to name one—but he kept things moving along. Not only were the “good” guys entertaining, but some of the “bad” guys were equally developed. Cook did a great job at portraying some pretty dark characters and I found a few of them as captivating as some of the good guys.I will definitely be picking up the second book. I’ve heard it’s better, and I’m curious to see where the story goes. We’ve got a peek towards the direction we’ll be traveling, and I’m excited about it. But most of all, I look forward to hanging out with the gang again. The great banter and wide cast makes it delightfully entertaining. And now that I’m adjusted to Cook’s style and know what to expect, I think I’ll be able to sit back and enjoy the second one more.Overall, this book’s got some great cussing, it moves along nicely, it’s choppy and delightfully free of lengthy descriptions, it’s got a great set of characters, and some deep thoughts. I’d recommend it to any fantasy lover.

I enjoyed this book so much that I'm now neck deep in the series.If you're a fan of the Malazan series, then you should really give this one a shot and see what you think. If you enjoyed following Fiddler and the Bonehunters, then you'll probably feel at home following the Black Company in their escapades. It has the same militaristic feel to it, along with secret plots, back stabbing, epic battles, magic, and all in a much smaller scope than the Malazon series.The story is told primarily from the perspective of Croaker, the company physician and annalist, and it appears that the story is essentially being told from the annals. Any time the story is being told in first person, you know it is from Croaker's point of view. Everyone else is referred to in third person, which I really appreciate because it helps you keep track of who you are following and what's currently going on.It's a somewhat simple story in scope, at least in comparison to other Epic Fantasy novels (Wheel of Time, Malazan Book of the Fallen) but I quickly came to appreciate the smaller scope of the story. The series is still deep enough to be enticing, but not so deep that you get lost at every turn trying to make sense of it all. You don't really get any of the "fluff" either that longer books have big chunks of (or in some cases, entire books filled with fluff.)I love the story, I love the characters, my only complaint really is that I wish they were a bit longer. I'm chewing through these books so fast, but enjoying every minute of it.

Initially hard to read. Nothing connects. Everything feels disconnected. From each other. Just like these sentences.Eventually it starts to get interesting and stays that way. Hard read but it's worth it. I advice you pick up the trilogy though. Now I need to buy the trilogy because I can't find the books seperately.

The story itself is amazing and this is where it all starts. But beware: at the time of purchasing, I bought this thinking I could easily pick up the next installments - I was wrong. Much better buying the collection of the first three novels than this. 5 stars for the reading but better value with the collection.

This is a spectacular book (and series). Here is a word of warning: it takes a good 100+ pages to get into it. You are literally dropped into the long history of The Black Company in the middle of things. Nothing will make sense. You will wonder if you should bother to keep going. The characters are wacky. The geography is confusing. The magic doesn't follow any of the rules or conventions offered by other authors. And if there are any rules, the main character doesn't bother sharing what they are. Why would he?But push through. You won't read another book like it. I'm on the fourth book in the series now (in a row, which says something) and loving them. Cook is immensely clever and offers a refreshingly pragmatic and entertaining read. You will laugh out loud and really feel empathy for characters that... you wouldn't normally feel empathy for. Enjoy.

If you like dark fantasy - stories that are not about sterile clean ever-happy heroes and people where all ends well and nice - The Black Company is for you.They are not goodie-two-shoes, no knights in shining armor. They have done terrible things and compassion isn't exactly a trademark. But at the same time the characters of the Black Company are authentic and they grow on you with their crooked charme. And they carry a weird kind of honor and pride with them.I was looking a while ago for darker fantasy with questionable heroes or main characters. Ever since I got my hands on R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice (many many years ago, before Amazon existed in Germany) I hungered for plausible, barbaric and dark fantasy stories.A few weeks ago I found The Black Company and fell in love with the series.What do I like in particular:The characters.They are as I mentioned before, authentic. Everyone of them has his quirks, dark secrets and viewsEach of them has a well fleshed out background - revealed more and more throughout the story. And the best of it, I couldn't really find any boring stereo-types.Dialogues:The story all in all is very well written - especially the dialogues.It's always hard to write an ongoing dialogue between multiple characters - Glen Cook mastered it.Many of the dialogues had me laughing.What can I say more... eloquent - sarcastic - pun after pun or simply interesting when the story takes a slower pace.Story iteself:At the beginning I was a bit worried... it starts out a bit slow and harmless. But soon after that it picks up pace and I couldn't put the "e-book" out of my hands. Next day I looked like an old owl with deep dark rings under my eyes ;-)It's dark, it deals with nasty things - tender souls shouldn't read it unless they are masochists...The combat scenes are nice to read - no exaggeration - just plain realistic combat yet exciting.No epic Drizzt-Do'Urden-Super-Hero beat them all Hack&Slash. In this story, people lose their life or body-parts and life still goes on.I wish there would be much more of that kind of fantasy on the market.

Well written. Can't call the maincharacters evil but more like I imagine real soldiers and i like it. It's a refreshing style of storytelling.The best part for me, which may puts of other Readers, is that the author hinted at the bad stuff. Giving enough information to understand what happened but without unneeded Details.